[geeks] Special skills draft?

[Francisco Javier Mesa-Martinez]

On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 07:46:25 +0100
  Mike Meredith <mike at blackhairy.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 13:02:37 -0700, Francisco Javier 
>Mesa-Martinez
> wrote:
>> Well, there is always the counter example of WWII. Where 
>> conscript US forces handled the battle seasoned nazi 
>>army 
>> their own ass on a platter with potatoes and gravvy.
> 
> 1 .. You're forgetting the British, Canadians, Russians, 
>French, Polish,
>     Basque, ... troops. Some of which were drafted; some 
>of which were
>     volunteers.

I was just giving an example with the US troops, as far as 
I understand it, on a per capita basis, Canada was the 
nation that had the highest level of both involvement and 
casualties of all the allies. And their sacrifice goes 
unacknowledged sometimes. The Brits also had to endure 
some horrific attrition rates.

> 2 .. It was a lot tougher to beat the Nazi's than you 
>imply which makes
>     the achievement of conscript troops more impressive. 
>Lookup the
>     2nd half of the Italian campaign, or Arnem (as the 
>60th anniversery
>     has just passed, the BBC news site will have some 
>pointers).

I don't know where in my message you got the notion that 
beating the nazis in western Europe was a walk in the 
park. Au contrarie, going into Normady charging into a 
freaking beach cliff required some of the biggest brass 
balls the world has ever seen. The fact that the allies 
were able to overcome a force that was battle seasoned is 
a remarkable feat. No questions about it. In fact  I find 
it preposterous that the son of an nazi gets to become the 
governor of a state in the US barelly 50 years after the 
Americans had to sacrifice so many men to beat those nazi 
bastards. I find that incredibly disrespecful IMHO.